A group
called PunditFact has a “Truth-O-Meter” which says
that Bill O’Reilly’s observation that Nelson Mandela was a
communist is “correct,” but only “mostly true.”
How something can be correct but only “mostly true” is not
really explained. It is apparently a liberal’s way of saying that
Mandela’s communism should be of no special significance, and that
we should just ignore the fact that the world was deceived about his devotion
to communism for several decades.

PunditFact
is a project of PolitiFact, a winner of the Pulitzer Prize in journalism.
It is a joint project of the St. Petersburg Times and Congressional Quarterly.
It rates statements for truth or falsity, with “Pants on Fire”
signifying a big lie.

The
PunditFact group’s dishonest treatment of the controversy over Mandela’s
communist record and motivation may be another indication that the liberal
establishment cannot come to grips with the fact that Mandela deceived
South Africa and the world for decades. The liberals were deceived as
well and have now been caught red-faced. Their human rights icon turns
out to have been a “Pants on Fire” liar who concealed his
affiliation with a bloody movement that has taken more than 100 million
lives. Whites in South Africa are now facing potential genocide, according
to the Genocide
Watch website.

Here’s
the “ruling” from PunditFact, after reviewing O’Reilly’s
observation and the evidence on the matter: “The weight of the historical
evidence shows that O’Reilly is correct. For a time, Mandela—despite
his denials—appears to have been a member not only of the party
but also of its central committee. However, it’s worth noting that
Mandela’s affiliation with the party or its goals was never a dominant
feature of his ideology or message. We rate O’Reilly’s claim
Mostly True.”

The
claim that Mandela was a communist only “for a time” is not
clear. We are not sure how many years he belonged to the party. The key
point is that he was a member “despite his denials,” which
means that he lied through his teeth.

The
claim that “Mandela’s affiliation with the party or its goals
was never a dominant feature of his ideology or message” is totally
false. Equally false is the group’s claim that “Mandela was
not a communist ideologue.”

We have
noted evidence,
even mentioned by Bill Keller of The New York Times, that the communists
who run South Africa are still pursuing a Soviet-style strategy of revolutionary
change. Mandela was a key part of implementing this strategy.

The
Pundit Factgroup fails to note that Mandela spoke
to the 9th Congress of the South African Communist Party in 1992, decades
after he was reported to be a member of the central committee of the South
African Communist Party. He said, “It is not given to a leader of
one political organization in a country to sing praises to the virtues
of another. But that is what I intend to do today. If anything, this signifies
the unique relationship between the African National Congress and the
South African Communist Party.”

The
African National Congress (ANC) was dominated by members of the South
Africa Communist Party (SACP) and constitutes what is known as a communist
front. The ANC rules South Africa today and President Jacob Zuma is a
“former” high-ranking SACP member.

Four
years later, on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the South African
Communist Party, Mandela, as president of South Africa, gave
a speech to the SACP, saying, “I feel really honored to be part
of this celebration of a historic day in South Africa`s political calendar.
The 75th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party is a special
occasion for South Africa. It is special because of the critical role
the Party has played in our country`s history, because of its relevance
to today`s politics; and because it is bound to make an impact on the
future of our society.”

He went
on to say, “The Alliance between the ANC and the Communist Party
is therefore a natural result of a reality of social life that pervades
our nation to this day.”

Speeches
like this are critical to understanding Mandela’s ideology. He never
disavowed the communist movement of which he was a central part. But PunditFact
ignored these speeches. They can be easily obtained through searches on
the website of the SACP.

PunditFact
attempts to justify Mandela’s involvement with the Communist Party
by saying, “For decades, there were few allies Mandela could have
sought out in the fight against apartheid.” The SACP, which was
established by white communists, was opposed to apartheid for propaganda
reasons. Its real goal was the takeover of South Africa in order to make
it a client state of the Soviet Union. The objective was to acquire control
of strategically important southern Africa.

Southern
Africa, with its strategic minerals, was a critical prize during the Cold
War. Soviet leader Leonid I. Brezhnev had told Somalian President Siad
Barre, “Our aim is to gain control of the two great treasure houses
on which the West depends—the energy treasure house of the Persian
Gulf and the mineral treasure house of Central and Southern Africa.”

PunditFact
says, “The Communist Party—due in part to its long fight against
apartheid—does not have the same negative connotation in South Africa
that it does in the United States.” Again, the SACP’s real
goal was to assist in a Soviet takeover of the country. Both the SACP
and the Communist Party USAwere pawns of the Soviet Union. Any expert
on communism will attest to that fact. But those experts were not consulted
by PunditFact.

In order
to try to diminish the significance of his membership in the SACP, PunditFact
says, “It’s unclear whether Mandela ever formally resigned,”
but that “There is no indication he was a party member at the time
he was elected president after being released from prison.”

So if
he didn’t formally resign, how do we know he left the party? PunditFact
is trying to have it both ways. It is determined to playdown the significance
of Mandela’s big lie by suggesting there’s some question about
how long he belonged to the SACP.

The
bottom line is that Mandela lied about his party membership for decades
and millions of people were fooled by him. He lied in order to rope in
what are called “dupes” to the communist cause. It is a well-established
strategy by communists, using front groups. In the case of South Africa,
the SACP used the ANC, headed by Mandela. It was a perfect relationship,
designed to fool foreign audiences, because Mandela was involved with
both organizations.

The
writer of this entry is identified as Louis Jacobson, PolitiFact Deputy
Editor and a staff writer for the Tampa Bay Times. He apparently didn’t
bother to do basic research into Mandela’s involvement with the
SACP. Instead, he consulted various “experts” such as Danny
Schechter, author of a book about Mandela, and Gerald Horne, identified
as a University of Houston historian and author of From the Barrel
of a Gun: The United States and the War against Zimbabwe, 1965-1980.

Schechter
wrote the introduction to How
We Won the War by the communist North Vietnamese General Vo Nguyen
Giap. Schechter was a supporter of the communist military takeover of
South Vietnam.

Gerald
Horne is a contributing editor of the Communist Party journal, Political
Affairs, and was the first to disclose that the mysterious “Frank”
in Obama’s book Dreams From My Father was Communist Party
member Frank Marshall Davis.

These
sources clearly know something about communism, but not from the anti-communist
perspective.

Left
out of the Jacobson account is how sweeping Mandela’s denials of
party membership and influence were.

•
“At the outset, I want to say that the suggestion made by the state
in its opening that the struggle in South Africa is under the influence
of foreigners or communists is wholly incorrect.”• “…I am not a communist and I have
never been a member of the Communist Party…”

In addition,
as we pointed out, Mandela was lying
about his devotion to communism as recently as a few years ago. He
told Richard Stengel of Time magazine that he had been “anti-communist”
and only went to the SACP meetings because he was “invited.”He
rejected Marxism as a “foreign ideology.”

“At
his arrest in August 1962, Nelson Mandela was not only a member of the
then underground South African Communist Party, but was also a member
of our Party’s Central Committee,” the SACP
says. “To us as South African communists, Cde [Comrade] Mandela
shall forever symbolize the monumental contribution of the SACP in our
liberation struggle. The contribution of communists in the struggle to
achieve the South African freedom has very few parallels in the history
of our country. After his release from prison in 1990, CdeMadiba became
a great and close friend of the communists till his last days.”

The
African National Congress confirmed
that “Madiba [Mandela] was also a member of the South African Communist
Party, where he served in the Central Committee.”

PolitiFactdidn’t
really lie outright about the substantial evidence of Mandela’s
communism. The website included some of it, such as the SACP statement.
But it still deserves a “Pants on Fire” rating for trying
to obscure and play down the hard facts and the truth and for failing
to explore the implications of Mandela’s fraudulent behavior and
lies.

In fairness,
however, O’Reilly should have originally cited evidence for his
observation that Mandela was a communist.

On Monday,
he seemed to somewhat back away from the observation, after being criticized
for it by leftist MSNBC agitator Al Sharpton. “As a young man,”
O’Reilly
observed, “Nelson Mandela had Marxist leanings and dealt closely
with communists. Check out a recent article in ‘The Economist’
magazine, if you want specifics on that. Anyone who knows anything about
South Africa understands Mr. Mandela’s philosophy.”

Mandela,
in O’Reilly’s world, went from a communist to merely having
Marxist leanings in his youth. What’s more, The Economist is not
a good source on this. The best sources are the ones cited
by Accuracy in Media and confirmed by the South African Communist Party
and now Mandela’s own ANC.

At stake
is not only the $500 million a year in U.S. foreign aid to South Africa,
but how a figure glorified by people on the left and right is going to
be viewed historically and in textbooks by our young people.

Objectively,
Mandela should go down in history as a communist who manipulated a movement
and a country, enlisting the “global community” in the process.
This is truly an achievement, but not one that in the ultimate analysis
will keep South Africa truly free and independent. South Africa today
is “joined
at the hip” to Communist Cuba, and South African President Jacob
Zuma has signed a strategic partnership agreement with Vladimir Putin’s
Russia.

In calling
Mandela a great friend of the Soviet Union/Russia, Putin
said, “It was our country—the Soviet Union—that
in the most active manner supported South Africa and other countries in
Africa in their fight against racial segregation, their fight for justice
and democracy.”

Notice
Putin’s reference to “our country” as the USSR.

South
Africa and Russia are moving ahead together. The recent report, “Russia–South
Africa Relations: Beyond Revival, ”issued by the George Soros-funded
Open Society Foundation for South Africa (OSF-SA), said, “The development
of mineral resources—particularly diamonds, gold, manganese, platinum
group metals, and rare earth elements—is one of the most promising
areasof bilateral co-operation.”

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It looks
like Brezhnev’s prediction may be coming true.

It appears
to be the case, in the words of the Tom Cruise movie “A Few Good
Men,” that most of the media just can’t “handle the
truth” about Mandela and the foreign interests he served. They don’t
want to admit that their hero, who personified “forgiveness”
and “reconciliation,” should go down in history as one of
the biggest liars and con artists of all time.

PunditFact is a project of PolitiFact, a winner of the Pulitzer Prize
in journalism. It is a joint project of the St. Petersburg Times and Congressional
Quarterly. It rates statements for truth or falsity, with “Pants
on Fire” signifying a big lie.